


Wizard Chess

by manatee_patronus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Kinky, Tickling, Wizard Chess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 19:57:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13577886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manatee_patronus/pseuds/manatee_patronus
Summary: In this altered universe, Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape attend school at the same time and begin their teacher training together. Through closer association, they finally get to know each other during their summertime walks on the castle grounds and their games of wizard chess, and they ultimately fall in love. Now Minerva must decide whether she will risk embarrassment and rejection to tell Severus her biggest secret.





	Wizard Chess

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dear readers, I'm still proofing this fic, so please feel free to comment if you see anything awkward! I appreciate any recommendations/suggested edits :)

 

Not many people at Hogwarts remember that Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall once had a passionate fling in their younger days. 

 

They had gone to school together where they each excelled at different subjects, but their paths rarely crossed due to the hostility between their houses. However, both of them were united in their ambition to become Hogwarts professors.

 

Both of them immediately applied for opening posts upon graduation. Professor Taperwing was retiring from the Transfiguration post and Potions Professor Stalberte had passed away at the age of 101, after serving the school for 83 years. He'd forced himself to hang on for the House Cup and graduation festivities, then immediately retired to his quarters near the Potions classroom in the dungeons. There, he'd propped himself up in bed with a box of chocolates, a glass of red wine, and his favorite book, and had sent Madam Pomfrey a Patronus to inform her that he regretted the inconvenience, but he projected that he'd be kicking the bucket before morning and would therefore need assistance in leaving his bed the next day. His premonition had been accurate.

 

Minerva was delighted to be accepted for the Transfiguration post, as that had always been her favorite subject. Severus wanted to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, but he figured (like the clever Slytherin he was) that getting his foot in the door with the Potions post would allow him to demonstrate his teaching prowess until such time as the Defense Against the Dark Arts post became available. 

 

It is customary for new Hogswarts professors to train and build their own curricula during the summer prior to their first year of teaching. So, shortly after their graduation ceremony and a few weeks of vacation with their families, Minerva and Severus found themselves back at school, ready to begin their training.

 

It was strange for Minerva to see the castle so empty. It would have been unnerving, except she was spending 8 hours of her day training with Professor Taperwing and 3 hours at mealtimes, so she didn't have much time to be alone. When she  _did_ find herself alone, she liked to take her lesson-planning materials or a pleasure-reading book outside to enjoy the sunshine. She would take walks around the grounds and lie beneath the beech tree beside the lake and relax with her books.

 

During meals, Professor Dumbledore had Minerva, Severus, Professor Taperwing, and the few other professors who had decided to stay for the summer all sit at a small table at the top of the hall where the long staff table usually stood. Dumbledore engaged them like family at mealtimes. He asked them about how their respective days of training had gone, inquired about the family members that sent them letters by owl post, and entertained everyone at the table with jokes. 

 

Soon, Minerva also started to suspect with some amusement that Dumbledore was trying to play matchmaker. Now that Minerva and Severus were in such close proximity from day to day, perhaps he too had noticed their similarities: their cleverness, sarcasm, and passion for their respective studies. Minerva had certainly noticed these attractive qualities in Severus during their meals together, and with a warmth in her cheeks as she turned away, hoping he hadn't caught her watching him, she wondered why this shy, handsome boy from Slytherin had never turned her head in all of her seven years at school. But then she realized the answer was in her question - his belonging to Slytherin House.

 

About two weeks into the summer, on a sunny, breezy Saturday, Dumbledore basically ordered them to take a walk outside after breakfast. "I forbid you two to study inside today," he said jovially as he buttered his toast. "Go take a walk and gather inspiration from the sights and sounds of nature." 

 

Neither of them needed much convincing, since the enchanted ceiling promised such beautiful weather. Once their meal was finished, they pushed in their chairs and walked out through the entrance hall together. 

 

It was a glorious day outside. The sun felt good on Minerva's skin, and her light summer robes rustled about her in the mountain breeze. 

 

"Seems like Dumbledore really wants to set us up," Severus eventually said to break the silence.

 

"Yeah," laughed Minerva, whose brain was too fuzzy to think of anything else more clever to say. Severus's face turned red as though he immediately regretted his words.

 

They quickly turned to other subjects as they neared the lake. Minerva was surprised to find that in addition to academics, they also shared a passion for Quidditch. 

 

"Have you ever played it or just watched it?" Minerva asked excitedly.

 

"Just watched it," said Severus. "I'm not really the athletic type, though I have done a little flying - just by myself, you know - it's the best feeling in the world. But anyway, my mum's taken me to a few World Cups now since she has some connections at the Ministry."

 

"Wow, you're so lucky!" Minerva said. "I've just enjoyed watching the school matches. And I commentated for a few semesters."

 

"You did?" Severus said, surprised.

 

"Yeah, it was in our fourth year. The position came open because whatever seventh year was doing it before had graduated and I figured that it would be as good of an extracurricular as any, especially since you get the best seat in the stadium for the game. That was the year Gryffindor won."

 

Severus rolled his eyes and scoffed a little. "Yeah," he said, "Only because our Seeker took ill just before the final match and they had to bring in a replacement. Otherwise Potter would've missed the Snitch while showing off for the spectators."

 

Minerva's mouth formed the thin line that would one day inspire fear in her future students; however, she said nothing because she had at least heard of Severus's personal enmity with James Potter, and she knew that he was just as stubbornly supportive of his own House as she was of hers. 

 

Soon they found a shady place beneath two trees. Severus pulled a small box out from his cloak and showed it to Minerva.

 

"Wizard chess?" he proposed.

 

"Sure!" she said. With her wand, she conjured a thick, red-and-gold patterned blanket for them to sit on.

 

Severus smirked as he sat down and began to take out his board and pieces. "If you think your Gryffindor blanket is going to ruin my mojo, you've got another thing coming."

 

It was Minerva's turn to scoff. "Looks like someone's humble about their chess abilities," she teased. "Honestly, though, you're probably going to beat me anyway. I've never been good at wizard chess." 

 

"Really?" surprise kindled in Severus's black eyes. "Something that the brilliant Minerva isn't good at?" There was no hint of scorn or tease in his voice. Minerva was too flattered to think of a response for a moment, so she set up her white pieces.

 

They began to play, verbally directing their chessmen to advance across the board and looking on as they battered each other into little wooden pieces (which reassembled themselves magically when the box was closed).

 

Minerva focused all of her concentration on directing her chessmen to where she thought they would be safe, and also toward locations that might prove to be useful as vantage points for attack. However, her careful planning turned out to be sluggish compared with Severus's complex strategy; at least, she assumed it must be complex - there were a few times where he grinned with clear triumph after one of her moves, but her piece would not be taken until 3 or 4 turns later.

 

Minerva wasn't frustrated when she lost; she had never been a sore loser, and she always appreciated the opportunity to improve a skill by watching someone who excelled at it. 

 

Indeed, many more such opportunities came that summer. Minerva and Severus had enjoyed their walk and chess game so much that they made it into a bi-weekly (sometimes more frequent) ritual. Their pedagogical training increasingly diminished over the next month, leaving them more free time to build their lesson plans for the upcoming semester and to spend time together.

 

Though Minerva gradually improved her strategy and was able to hold out for longer against Severus's clever attacks, she still had not achieved a single victory against him.

 

One day, after a particularly brutal pummeling of her cornered king by Severus's rook, he remarked, "You know, I think your problem might be that you play too defensively. You keep all of your big pieces behind the front lines until I come to attack them!"

 

"Yeah, I know," Minerva said, scooping the broken blocks of her pieces into Severus's chess box. "But I'm trying to protect them! I don't want to move them out into the open where I'm going to lose them first!"

 

"You're losing them anyway," Severus reminded her with his eyebrows raised.

 

Minerva laughed and swatted at him. "Now don't you get cocky, Professor Snape. You save that for your future students."

 

Over time, they also fell in love. One day, as they sat by the lake, a howling downpour split the sky unexpectedly and pelted the lake with bullet-like raindrops. Despite Minerva's quick conjuration of an invisible barrier above their heads, they were both soaked. Severus laughed at Minerva's horrified glance down at her clothes as he tossed his dripping hair out of his eyes.

 

He waved his wand at her and the earth beneath them and said, "Sechez!"

 

Her clothes and the ground she sat on were immediately dry and comfortable. He pointed his wand at himself and repeated the spell. Now his hair was no longer plastered to his head.

 

They lay on the ground and watched the lake seethe as the rain struck it, warm and comfortable beneath the barrier that Minerva had created. Soon Minerva found that her hand was wrapped in Severus's hand. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. A short time later, she turned her head to look at him, he mirrored her gesture, and then they were both kissing, the raindrops gently pattering the ground around them. 

 

Despite the happiness that the new relationship yielded to Minerva, it also brought up a complication: whether or not she should tell Severus about her tickling fetish. 

 

She had been aware of it basically all of her sexual life, from shortly after the time that she had arrived at Hogwarts. All of her notions of attraction and sexuality were accompanied by fantasies of tickling, rather than intercourse. She liked the idea of both giving and receiving tickling, found herself attracted to boys based on the sound of their laughter and the way their eyes crinkled when they smiled. 

 

Minerva wasn't sure where these fantasies had come from. Long hours of pondering had led her to consider that she might be drawn to tickling because of its spirit of silliness and abandon, which stood in stark contrast to the way that she projected herself on a daily basis - as professional and no-nonsense. She yearned for the ability to let go, surrender to the will of someone more powerful than her, and giggle helplessly as their fingers danced all over her most ticklish spots...She realized very quickly, from hearing the bawdy banter of her fellow Gryffindor females, that her desires were not normal. So she kept them quiet.

 

She purposefully devoted herself to her studies, and avoided social interactions that might lead to a relationship, due to her shame regarding her fetish. She didn't think she could ever bring herself to explain her desires to a potential mate, but she also didn't think that she could be fulfilled in a relationship where these desires weren't met. 

 

On one occasion, she had come very close to revealing her fetish to her fellow Gryffindors, and it had made her even more cautious and secretive in subsequent years.

 

In her fourth year, a group of fun-seeking, trouble-making Gryffindors had stolen the Sorting Hat from Dumbledore's office. No one was quite sure how they had pulled it off, but everyone who was still awake in the Common Room at that time watched with amusement (Minerva, studying in an armchair by the fire, also watched surreptitiously) as a few rowdy students chased each other around the room and thrust the hat on each other's heads, as it had developed the humorous habit of apparently blurting the wearer's private thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness style.

 

"I wish Jordan would ask me to the winter dance...

 

"I'm hungry. Why doesn't the Great Hall ever have lasagna?"

 

"If I knew how to make a love potion, I would tap that so hard..."

 

Some of the students who were most put-off about being held down while the hat declared some of their inner-most secrets stormed off to bed, while the remaining students began a strange version of truth or dare with the hat.

 

"Think of your dirtiest secret that you're willing to share," said Minerva's friend and crush at that time, Chaser and prefect Thomas Cambridge. She would have teased him about dishonoring his badge by taking part in this activity, but for the time being, she was content to watch from afar and thereby avoid becoming a non-consensual hat-wearer. "Preferably sexual in nature," Thomas added in a theatrical whisper. Several girls giggled and Minerva felt jealous and irritable. "Then, if you dare, put on the hat and allow it to share that secret with us."

 

"What if the hat tells another secret?" A third year asked. "One that we don't want to share?"

 

Thomas shrugged and grinned wickedly. "There's no fun without a bit of risk, eh?"

 

So it began:

 

"I'm attracted to boys and girls" - hugs and applause.

 

"I have a thing for feet" - giggles and titters, some leg-shifting as those seated in the circle became hyper-aware of their own feet.

 

Minerva found herself watching raptly as the hat made its way toward Thomas. She was very interested to hear what his secret would be...

 

He dropped it on his head after holding it aloft for a few seconds to generate suspense. It landed with a pfft on his curly brown hair, the brim split, and the hat spoke, "I have a weakness for smart, nerdy girls." Thomas looked in Minerva's direction and their eyes met. She dropped her own eyes, blushing furiously, and immediately wondered if she had imagined his glance in her direction. Don't be stupid, she told herself. If he was looking this way, it was only because he was wondering why I was staring at him like a mad person...

 

There were cries of indignation at his confession.

 

"That's not a real dirty secret!" someone exclaimed.

 

"Lots of people are attracted to nerds!"

 

"Do something juicier!"

 

Thomas grinned. "I can't help it if I'm not as twisted and corrupt as the rest of you, can I? Come on, the show must go on." He passed the hat to the next person.

 

Minerva set down her quill and began steeling herself to do something gutsy. If Thomas really was flirting with her, then joining his game and putting on the hat would make her look cool and would allow her to make her desires known at the same time, in case they did end up together.

 

But then the whole Gryffindor tower would know.

 

But in this context, maybe they (more importantly, Thomas) would even find it cute?

 

You might have imagined Thomas flirting with you.

 

Seemingly of its own accord, her body was making the decision for her: her hands were stowing books in her bag, her feet were carrying her to the circle of giggling students, she was sitting down in the gap between the first student to try on the hat and the person who would be the last. Thomas flashed a grin at her. She was glad she wasn't standing anymore because her legs now felt wobbly.

 

Now the hat was one person away. Now it was being pressed into her hands and everyone's eyes were on her.

 

"Go on, Minerva," Thomas urged her, and the interest and enthusiasm in his wide eyes led her to lift the hat above her head.

 

But then she imagined, in advance, the hush that might fall over the surrounding students. No one else had confessed to anything like her secret. What if she was seen as a weirdo, someone to be avoided, for liking something so unusual and unnatural?

 

She lowered the hat and said, "I can't."

 

Thomas opened his mouth, perhaps about to encourage her again, but then one of Minerva's fellow fourth years, a girl that she didn't like, cried out, "Ooooh, Minerva must have a really dirty secret. Who knows what she gets up to when she's not studying and kissing the teachers' asses?"

 

"That's probably it!" another girl laughed. "She's giving sexual favors to the teachers to get her grades. Dirty, pervy, nerdy Minerva!"

 

A chant started up around the circle. "No!" Minerva cried. "That's not - that's not true -" but the voices of her fellow students drowned out her protests.

 

Minerva looked around, paralyzed with shame, and then saw Thomas laugh and begin to clap in time with the chanting.

 

Someone to her right whipped the hat out of her hand and raised it over her head, about to put it on her forcibly. Quick as lightning, she hit them with a non-verbal "Petrificus Totalus" that sent them flying into a nearby armchair before falling to the ground, as straight and rigid as a board. Minerva didn't even look to see who it was or where the hat had gone. She grabbed her bag, leapt to her feet, and ran up to her dormitory, shaking with sobs.

 

That had been the end of her crush on Thomas, as well as her hope that she might one day be able to share her desires with someone she loved.

 

Now, as her relationship with Severus developed further, as they learned more about each other and began to broach the standard frontiers of physical intimacy, she found that she was steeling herself to reveal the truth again, just as she had that night in the Common Room - however, each time she came close to being open with Severus, she faltered.

 

The closest she'd come had been when he was giving her a massage following their most recent chess game ("You probably need a massage after that beating you just got," he had joked). She was lying on her stomach by the lake, her head resting on her folded arms. Severus had cast a leg over both of her legs as he slowly massaged her neck and shoulders. She sighed contentedly at his gentle touch and the feeling of the sun on her arms.

 

His hands slowly made their way over her shoulder blades and down toward her hips. He pulled his hands away for a moment, probably to adjust his shirt, and then, when he replaced his hands, it happened - the renewed touch, so close to the sensitive crevice between her hips and ribs, was unexpected. A jolt of ticklish electricity shot through Minerva, her body tensed up beneath his touch, and a gasp escaped her - she would have giggled if he had continued to massage her there, but instead he stopped and said, "Oh, did that tickle? Sorry." He immediately moved his hands more toward her spine and rubbed harder to avoid tickling her again.

 

For a moment, she didn't breathe. Her mouth open, she stared at the blades of grass inches in front of her and struggled to release the words that were stuck in her throat: "It's OK. I like that." But then the moment passed and Minerva sighed sadly, which Severus seemed to mistake for an expression of pleasure.

 

As the sun set, they returned to the castle together, Minerva silent and stony-faced and Severus confused and hurt. She squeezed his hand as they entered the Great Hall, hoping to reassure him that she wasn't upset at him, but she couldn't bring herself to communicate verbally at the moment; she worried that she would cry if she opened her mouth.

 

Dumbledore asked her if anything was wrong while they ate. She shook her head and smiled brightly at him while chewing a mouthful of food, then lowered her eyes immediately because she knew that Dumbledore was likely capable of Legilimency.

 

She left the table before anyone else, told Severus that she'd see him tomorrow, and began walking furiously through the castle as she did sometimes when she was upset or preoccupied. Not only did the exercise help, but the prospect of finding a hidden room or enchanted corridor (which she had done on past explorations) pleasantly diverted her from her stormy thoughts.

 

Perhaps her path was being influenced by her mood, as she soon found her steps turning toward the dungeons where she had once had Potions classes. She supposed that Severus would be teaching there soon, too. She stalked past the Potions classroom door and continued down the rough-walled hallway, lit only by the occasional torch in brackets along the walls. Minerva knew that the entrance to the Slytherin common room was somewhere this way; she had seen her fellow Slytherin prefects leading first-years down a corridor on her right-hand side, but she wasn't particularly interested in trying to gain access to their dormitory. Instead, she kept walking straight, and then turned left when the corridor dead-ended.

 

She cast "Lumos" because it was even darker in this narrower hall. Fewer torches with pale blue flames lit this hallway. Minerva was making her way toward the intriguing oak door at the end of the hall when something to her right caught her eye. She stopped and looked back - all she could see was a plain, bare stretch of stone wall. Curiously, she retreated a few steps...then it happened: as she drew level with what she assumed must be a magical boundary in the hall, the wall beside her revealed another hallway, barely wide enough for a single person to pass through, with what seemed to be stairs at the end of it, going down.

 

Experimentally, she reached her hand a few inches into the hall to make sure that it wasn't an illusion, and then she edged her way carefully through the hall until she stood on the staircase. It was a dizzyingly narrow spiral staircase made of stone. It had no rail, but the space in which it existed was only slightly more than an arm's length in diameter, so Minerva was able to steady herself against the opposite walls as she began to make her way down.

 

After a few steps, she heard an ominous grinding noise. She stopped and looked back. The crevice-like hallway that she had just passed through was closing behind her, the two walls moving together and barring her passage back through.

 

Despite the predicament this created, she was not overly concerned. She was a fully grown witch, after all; she was confident in her magical abilities and felt certain that they would help her find a way out - but for now, she didn't want to find a way out; she was still exploring.

 

The winding staircase drilled into the floor, perhaps 50 steps down. It grew warmer as she descended, which she found odd; normally the dungeons were quite cold, but this landing that she approached felt quite comfortable in temperature. Another difference from the dungeons above was that the wide room in which she emerged was filled with light; she blinked for a few moments and extinguished her wand as she began to take in her surroundings.

 

The light was coming from a merrily crackling fireplace against the far wall. A fluffy, red rug covered the stone floor. Apart from this, there was no furniture in the room. However, the walls were covered in paintings that made a variety of disconcerting sounds - moans, sighs, gasps. Minerva regarded the painting immediately to the right of the door and immediately blushed and turned away - it was an intimate scene taking place in a bedroom. In fact...Minerva walked around and noticed that intimacy and sensuality appeared to be the common theme of these paintings - they all depicted couples indulging in a variety of carnal pleasures.

 

Now on the other side of the room, she passed the fireplace and continued walking along the wall. She noticed that the line of portraits ended on the wall that she was approaching, leaving half of that wall bare. She could also see from this distance that the final portrait, unlike the others around it, was not moving – this she found strange.

 

She stopped before this painting and considered it. It depicted a brown-haired young woman who was tied, spread-eagle, on a bed. Despite the fact that the painting was not moving, Minerva could tell that it would be very active and loud indeed, if it _were_ bewitched: the girl's body was contorted as far as her bonds would allow, and the part of her face that wasn't blind-folded was screwed up with intensity, her smiling mouth open wide.

 

Minerva felt strangely excited looking at the picture. She searched the painting for the source of the girl's extreme reactions, and her eyes fell upon the girl's bare sole in the bottom-right corner. A hand, attached to an unseen person, was tickling the girl's foot.

 

Minerva took a step back, unconsciously breathing heavily. It felt exhilarating and slightly gratifying that in this room of sexual paintings, her fantasy would also be depicted. Then something else in the painting caught her eye. On the girl's left shoulder, there was what seemed to be a faint, brown smudge, vaguely tapered in shape.

 

Uneasily, Minerva moved her robes part of the way off of her left shoulder and regarded her very distinctive birthmark, which matched the mark in the picture. She studied the girl's face more carefully. It was hard to identify her by it, partially because of the size of the blind-fold and partially because of how it was contorted, but Minerva thought that it more or less looked like her face.

 

She looked around at the hundreds of other paintings that lined the walls before hers. _What did this room do_? She wondered. Did it simply append portraits to its collection according to the fantasies of those who visited, or was there something else to it? And why wasn't her picture moving like the others? In puzzlement, Minerva moved closer to the painting again and touched the pale, painted hand that was tickling her foot in the portrait.

 

It was like she had pushed a button. Where her hand made contact with the picture, it stuck as though with glue. Her feet locked to the floor. Before she could reach for her wand with the other hand, the stretch of wall containing the portrait moved like a door, the left side swinging toward her and the right side swinging into the space on the other side of the wall. However, she was moving with the portrait – the floor, too, was rotating, and she found herself slowly being pulled to the space on the far side of the wall.

 

When the floor and wall stopped moving, her hand and feet came unstuck from the portrait and floor. She looked back at the portrait and saw that the wall had perfectly fused with the wall on either side of it, except now the portrait faced the interior of this new room rather than the fireplace room she had just left. She touched the painting again, but nothing happened; it seemed she would have to deal with whatever was in this room before being permitted to exit the same way that she had entered.

 

She turned and faced the new room that she had just entered. It was a vast space filled with what appeared to be statues. The floor gleamed and seemed to be patterned in alternating squares of black and white...

 

 _A chessboard._ Minerva stared in wonder at what she had taken to be statues, which she now realized were life-size wizard chess pieces. They stood, waiting, on their starting spots. She stood behind the ranks of the black pieces; they appeared to be made of some kind of velvet or fine plush material.

 

She stepped forward and placed her hand on the flank of the right horse, whose rider was missing. His skin was soft and fuzzy to the touch, as she had suspected, and she felt his great body expand slightly with his slow breathing.

 

Minerva passed the horse and the pawn in front of him and began to cross the board toward the white pieces on the far side. Except they weren't white...more flesh-colored. She stopped before the pawn, who wore simple white robes and on whose face was something very like a flirtatious smile. The skin of his face and arms seemed so life-like that she was afraid to touch him – she thought she even could discern fine hairs on his arms and the base of his neck.

 

At that moment, she spied a door behind the ranks of white pieces. She immediately began to make her way toward it, but halted in her tracks when three of the white pawns moved closer together to block her path. All with the same flirtatious smile, they shook their heads at her.

 

She raised her wand, intending to disperse them forcefully – but then, without warning, the wand was lifted out of her hand as though another wizard had cast _Accio_ to summon it. The wand soared in a graceful arc above the the white pieces and landed behind them, near the door.

 

Minerva sighed and returned to the side of the board with the black pieces. It was clear enough what she had to do – play her way across the room in order to retrieve her wand and exit on the other side. A knot formed in her stomach, making her feel sick – what if she lost, as she usually did at chess? Were these life-size pieces going to destroy her, as wizard chess pieces normally did to each other? She wished that she could call Dumbledore for help, but she would have needed her wand to do that.

 

Resigned to concentrate and play as though her life depended on it (which it very well might), she returned to the side of the plush horse that she had touched earlier. As though he could read her mind, he bent his front legs until his head was close to the ground, giving a snuffling, affectionate neigh. She looped her arm around his neck and climbed onto his back. He straightened up and she found that she had a fairly decent view of the board from this height.

 

Moments after she had mounted her horse, the first white pawn – one of the pawns from the center of the board – moved two squares forward and started the game.

 

The pawns shuffled forward on either side, forming their diagonal ranks of support in preparation for the larger pieces to move out. With these life-size pieces, Minerva felt like a general maneuvering her men on a battlefield. She took extra care to develop her defenses well, and no pieces were exchanged until a good five or six minutes into the game.

 

One of the white pawns moved into attacking range of one of her pawns. After nervously assuring that her pawn would not be in danger if it took the encroaching piece, and that by doing so, she wouldn't leave another piece unprotected, she ordered it to attack the black pawn.

 

She watched, hugging her horse's neck tensely, as the pawn moved diagonally to attack...and pushed the opposing pawn off its square. The white pawn turned and stalked off the board; it stood on the side and faced the game, like a benched player in a sporting match. _How strange_ , thought Minerva. _This is more like Muggle chess._ There was no fight, no bludgeoning of the other piece. It had simply allowed itself to be pushed off of its square. While she should have been comforted by this non-violent process, she was instead more unsettled, as it made her all the more unsure as to what to expect from the rest of the game.

 

More pieces clashed and she observed with some satisfaction that the white pieces treated her black pieces with the same mercy as her pieces had exhibited thus far. She maneuvered her pawns, her other horse, and one of her bishops, but she remained close to her starting square, guarding her king along with the help of her queen and a pawn.

 

As always, after about ten or fifteen minutes, she began to make her customary mistake of remaining in the defensive for too long. As the black pieces grew bolder and began to sweep into her territory, she recalled Severus's playful criticisms of her tendency to guard her big pieces until he came hunting after them.

 

Though she tried to rectify her mistake, she realized with dismay that it was too late. The white rook came plowing into her territory, displacing two pawns and one of her bishops from their squares. From the other side of the board, a bishop careened into her other knight and then took her left rook as well.

 

Two moves later, she realized that she was about to be taken. The rook and bishop were now arranged such that she was not safe where she was, and if she moved to her left she would still be within their realm of attack. Only one other space, up and to the right, remained open to her, and this spot was being guarded by one of the white pawns.

 

She slumped against the neck of her horse, ordered one of her pawns to move forward, not even particularly paying attention to where she was sending it, and then waited. The white rook moved sideways and displaced her horse from its square. As he pushed her piece, his arm was pressed against her leg. It was warm and fleshly, as she had thought it might be. Something snagged her shoe on that foot and it went tumbling to the floor. She wanted to dismount her horse to go retrieve the shoe, but she was worried about falling the wrong way, and she figured that she had better wait for her horse to stop first.

 

When her horse had been fully pushed from its square, it knelt down again rather than leaving the board like the other pieces. Minerva made to get off the horse, but found herself unable to as the horse rapidly transformed: starting with the part of the horse that she was sitting on, the surface of the horse began to literally spread on either side of her until it expanded to more than the width of her outstretched arms. From beneath her seat on the horse, the flesh of the horse also spread forward, pushing her legs up so that they rested on the newly-flat surface of the horse, rather than on either side of it. Within seconds, she found herself sitting on a black, fuzzy mattress, rather than a horse.

 

Disoriented by this transformation, she sat for a moment, preparing to try to stand up again. But before she could, the front of the mattress, where her legs were extended straight out, flipped up, knocking her onto her back. She thrust her arms out on either side of her, intending to push herself back into a sitting position, but then something soft and fuzzy looped over each of her wrists and tightened until her arms were stretched taut, but not uncomfortably, up on either side of her head. She realized that these bonds, too, were made from the soft skin of her former horse. Something similar happened to her feet, so that within seconds, her feet were spread apart from each other and bound to the soft mattress. Her right foot still had its shoe on.

 

Nervously, Minerva wondered what was about to happen, and why her horse had converted into a mattress and restraints. She looked up and noticed that all of the white pieces that had been banished from the board were now grouped around her, looking down with their sly, mischievous smiles.

 

Those who were closest to her knelt and reached out to touch her. She felt soft finger-tip touches on her forehead, her wrists and forearms, her calves, and just below her ribs. She unconsciously sighed, as the touch felt nice. Then, remembering the erotic portrait of herself, she realized that these chess pieces were about to tickle her. She giggled a little in nervous anticipation, and to her immense pleasure, she noticed that the pieces that were touching her exchanged wider smiles in response to her laughter.

 

Then the tickling started with her bare foot. A pawn who was seated down there began to tease the highest part of her arch with two fingers, brushing back and forth rapidly over the sole of her sensitive, exposed foot. Her nervous giggle turned into a helpless, uncontrollable laugh. She fell back against the mattress, her torso wiggling and twitching. She couldn't move her foot or leg at all due to the tightness of the restraints, so she could only lie and feel the pawn's fingers (now all five of them) scrabble over the vulnerable landscape of her foot.

 

He was responsive to her sensitivity; he noted that she reacted more extremely when he tickled her pads and toes, so he lingered up there until her laughter was peppered with intermittent screams of excruciating delight.

 

Meanwhile, a white bishop was carefully removing her other shoe.

 

“No!” she squealed, twisting that foot in a vain attempt to remove it from his reach. “Not both! Hahaha – that will tickle too muchahahaha...” Her half-hearted protests were lost in new spasms of laughter as the bishop lay prone on his stomach and began to nibble up and down her right foot as though it were a corn on the cob. Once he had thoroughly nibbled her foot, he began to go over his handiwork with rapid, feathery kisses; somehow, this new touch, though gentler, was even more devastating than the nibbling had been.

 

After what seemed an eternity, the bishop and pawn let up from their coordinated torment of Minerva's feet. It took her several seconds to stop laughing. Her cheeks were warm and flushed and her hair was sweaty. For a few moments, the pieces resumed their gentle, slow touching of her arms, legs, and face.

 

Then she felt warm, fleshly fingertips gently sliding against her tummy as her shirt was pushed up over her ribs. Wisps of breath glanced off of her exposed belly and she, not being able to see what was going on from her position, began to giggle in anticipation again. Several of the chess pieces bent over her and began to lightly tickle and poke different parts of her stomach.

 

Her ribs and the area just above her navel were the most ticklish. A white knight, having dismounted his horse, gave gentle, rapid pinches to the little dips between her ribs. His touch was light, as though her ribs were a keyboard, and Minerva's torso shook with her laughter and wriggling as she unsuccessfully attempted to evade his persistent fingers.

 

He pulled back and she had a moment to breathe, but not before one of the rooks leaned forward and planted a slow, soft raspberry just above her navel. This was such an unexpected sensation that she shrieked and was completely disoriented for a moment. She regained her bearings just in time to see the rook take a deep breath in before lowering his head again.

 

She screamed with mirth as he continued to dapple her defenseless tummy with raspberries and nuzzling kisses. She felt aware of all parts of her body straining – her back arching with pleasure as he kissed her belly repeatedly, her laughter growing so thick and frantic that it became silent, her arms pulling down on her restraints as the overwhelming sensations washed over her, and her legs shifting in response to a pleasant throbbing that grew stronger and more volatile between her legs. The alien feeling of the rook's lips against her skin triggered an erotic panic in her; she loved the sensation, but it was so incredibly ticklish that she found herself squealing in delightful dread each time she watched him lower his head to kiss her again.

 

When the rook, too, pulled back, two pawns immediately began to tickle her armpits, lightly brushing their soft fingertips against the sensitive skin at the tops of her hollows. It was all the more devastating because of how she was tied with her arms straight up, with no looseness in the restraints to allow her to protect this private area. Instead, her arms were pulled taut and her helplessly ticklish armpits were exposed for the pleasure of the chess pieces. The warm feeling between her legs continued to come in waves and tears now formed at the corners of her eyes as she continued to laugh. As extreme as the tickling was, she did not want it to end – her whole body felt alive for the first time in many years.

 

Her head thrashed around as she laughed, as this was the only part of her that was still remotely mobile. As she turned her head to the left, she felt a strong hand on her forehead, keeping her head still. Then lips were kissing and nibbling her right ear.

 

Minerva laughed and moaned simultaneously as she felt herself come, soaring over the waves of pleasure between her legs and seeming to ride down gently from their peaks while the pieces still tickled her. It seemed that the tickling of her ear had sent her over the edge – she was not sure, but she thought that her ears might be the most ticklish parts of her body. She had never been able to bear anyone touching them or coming close to them – and any attempts to whisper something to her would send her tumbling on her side in a fit of hysterical giggles. She had some fond memories of individuals in the past who, amused by her reaction, had then proceeded to whisper nonsense to her until she squealed with laughter; most people, though, would find another way to communicate whatever their message was with her, since she obviously wasn't going to understand any whispered message.

 

As she squirmed away from the persistent lips that were tickling her ear now, she caught a glimpse of a crown in her peripheral vision; it was the king who was inflicting this delicious torment on her. And now he spoke, his voice a low, soft murmur that she was able to understand in spite of her continued giggles as his lips brushed against her earlobe.

 

“You do not risk because you are afraid to lose,” he said. “But in so doing, what do you gain?”

 

In a moment of inspiration, Minerva realized that he was talking about more than just her chess strategy. Then several things happened at once: the king took a few steps back and, along with the other chess pieces around him, simply began to fade, growing more and more transparent until he had disappeared entirely; the ceiling above Minerva seemed to shift and alter in a way that she couldn't quite understand, and the light playing across it began to flicker and dance; the fabric of the plush “mattress” beneath her which had once been her horse grew a little thicker and stiffer, not as soft as before; and finally, Minerva realized that her wrists and ankles were no longer bound.

 

She sat up, feeling a little dazed, and saw with surprise that she was no longer on the chess board. She was sitting in front of the fireplace in the strange portrait room – the fire was causing the light to flicker on the ceiling. As she clambered to her feet, she spied her wand on the carpet next to her and picked it up to put in her pocket.

 

Before she took leave of the room, she approached her portrait again and was unsurprised to see that it was moving now. The painted depiction of her squirmed and twisted as the unseen man tickled her foot. As she watched, he moved around her body and tickled her thighs, tummy, and armpits as well, never fully in view. Her giggles joined the sensual din of the other portraits around her.

 

Minerva strode back toward the opening to the stairwell. She followed it up its tightly-winding spiral and was again unsurprised and satisfied to find that the narrow hallway was open again. She passed through it and began to make her way out of the dungeons and back to the main part of the castle.

 

She felt happy and tired, and her body felt like it was buzzing all over. As exhausted as she was, it was a relief to put on her pajamas and climb under the covers. Not only was she pleased that her fantasy had finally come true (albeit in a strange way that she had not expected), but she was also looking forward to her habitual walk with Severus tomorrow, where she would finally take the risk of telling him about her tickling fetish, with the hope of gaining his enthusiastic acceptance and the kind of relationship that she had always dreamed about.

 


End file.
